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PEACE AND RESTORATION. 



SPEECH 



OF 



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HON. H. TRAYMOND, OF NEW YORK, 



IN REPLY TO 



HON. T. STEVENS, OF PENNSYLVANIA; 



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DELITEBED 



IN THE HOUSE OF KEPRESENTATIVES, DEOEMBER 21, 1865. 




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WASHINGTON: 

PRINTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE. 

1865. • 



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PEACE AND llESTOUATION. 



The ^ouse having resolved itself into the Committee 
of the Whole oa the state of the Union, (Mr. Bout- 
well in the chair,) and proceeded to the consider- 
ation of the President's annual message — 

Mr. RAYMOND said: 
. Mr. Chairman : I should 1)e glad, if it meet 
the sense of those members who are present, to 
make some remarks upon the general question 
now before the House ; but I do not wish to tres- 
pass at all upon their dis2:)Osition in regard to 
this matter. 1 do not know, however, that there 
will be a better opportunity to say what little I 
have to say than is now offered; and if the 
House shall indicate no other wish, I will pro- 
ceed to say it. [''Goon!"] 

' I need not say that I have been gratified to 
hear many things which have fallen from the 
lips of the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. FixcK,] 
who has just taken his seat. I have no party 
feeling, nor any other feeling, which would pre- 
vent me from rejoicing in the indications ap- 
parent on that side of the House of a purjaose 
to concur with the loyal people of the country, 
and with the loyal administration of the Gov- 
ernment, and with the loyal majorities in both 
Houses of Congress, in restoring peace and 
order to our common country. I cannot, per- 
haps, help wishing, sir, that these indications 
of an interest in the preservation of our Gov- 
ernment had come somewhat sooner. I can- 
not help feeling that such expressions cannot 
now be of as much service to the country as 
they might once have been. If we coiild liave 
had from that side of the House such indica- 
tions of an interest in the preservation of the 
.Union, sucli heartfelt sympathy with theefibrts 
of the Government for the preservation of that 
Union, such hearty denunciation of those who 
were seeking its destruction, while the war was 

raging, I am sure we might have been spared 

some years of war, some millions of money, 

and rivers of blood and tears. 
But, sir, I am not disposed to fight over again 



battles now happily ended. I feel, and I am 
rejoiced to find that members on the other side 
of the House feel, that the grej^t problem now 
before us is to restore the Union to its old in- 
tegrity, purified from every thing that' interfered 
with the full development of the spirit of liberty 
which it was made to enshrine. I trust that we 
shall have a general concurrence of the mem- 
bers of this House and of this Congress in such 
measures as may be deemed most fit and proper 
for the accomplishment of that result. I am glad 
to assume and to believe that there is not a mem- 
ber of this House, nor a man in this country, 
who does not wish, from the bottom of his heart, 
to see the day speedily come when we shall have 
this nation — the great American Republic — 
again united, more harmonious in its action 
than it has ever been, and forever one and indi- 
visible. We in this Congress are to devise the 
means to restore its union and its harmony, to 
perfect its institutions, and to make it in all its 
parts and in all its action, through all time to 
come, too strong, too wise, and too free ever to 
invite or ever to permit the hand of rebellion 
again to be raised against it. 

Now, sir, in devising those ways and means 
to accomplish that great result, the first thing 
we have to do is to know the point from which 
we start, to understand the nature of the mate- 
rial with which we have to work— the condition 
of the territory and the States with which we 
are concerned. I had supposed at the outset 
of this session that it was the purpose of this 
House to proceed to that work without discus- 
sion, and to commit it almost exclusively, if 
not entirely, to the joint committee raised by 
the two Houses for the consideration of that 
subject. But, sir, I must say that I was glad 
when I perceived the distinguished gentleman 
from Pennsylvania, [Mr., Stevens,] himself the 
chairman on the part of this House of that great 
committee on reconstruction, lead off in a dis- 
cussion of this general subject, and thus invite 



aJ.l the rest of us wlio choose to follow him in 
the ik'l)atc. In the remarks whieii he made in 
tliis hoily a few (hiys since, lie laid down, with 
the clearness and the force which characterize 
everything he says and does, his i)oint of de- 

Earture in commencing this great work. I had 
oped that the ground lie would lay dowirwoiild 
1m' such that we could all of us stand upon it 
and coiiperate with him in our common object. 
1 feel constrained to .say, sir — and 1 do it with- 
out the !*iiglitest disposition to create or to ex- 
aggerate differences — that tliere were features 
in liis exposition of the condition of the coun- 
try with which I cannot concur. I cannot for 
myself start from jn'ccisely the point which he 
assumes. 

In his remarks on that occasion he assumed 
that the States lately in rebellion were and are 
(Mit of the Union. Throughout his speech — I 
will Bot trouble you with reading passages from 
it — I find himsiicakingof those States as "out- 
aide of the Union," as "dead States," as hav- 
ing fo-rfeited all their rights and terminated their 
State existence. I find expressions still more 
definite and distinct ; 1 find him stating that 
they "are and for four years have been out of 
the" Union for all legal purposes;" as having 
l>een for four years a "separate power," and 
•'a separate nation." 

His position therefore is that these States, 
having been in rebellion, are now out of the 
Union, and are simply within the jurisdiction 
of the Constitution of the United States as so 
much territory to be dealt with precisely as the 
mil of the conqueror, to use his own language, 
may dictate. Now, sir, if that position is cor- 
rect, it prescribes for us one line of policy to 
bo pursued very ditrei'wit from the one that 
will be proper if it is not correct. His belief 
is that what wo have to do is to create new 
States out of this territory at the proper time — 
many years distant — retaining them meantime in 
a territorial condition, and subjecting them to 
precisely such a state of discipline and tutelage 
as Congress or the Government of the United 
States may see fit to presccibe. If I believed 
in the premises which he assumes, possibly, 
though I do not think probably, I might agree 
with the conclusion he has reached. 

But, sir, I cannot believe that this is our con- 
dition. 1 cannot believe that these States have 
mev been out of the Union, or that they are 
now out of the Union. 1 cannot believe that 
they ever have been, or are now, in any sense 
a separate Power. If they were, sir, how and 
when did tliey become so? They were once 
States of this Union — tlmt every one concedes; 
bound to the Union and made members of the 
Union by the Constitution of the United States. 
If they ever went out of the Union it was at 
some specific time and by some specific act. I 
regret* that the gentleman from Pennsyh-'ania 
[Mr. St^vexs j is not now in his seat. 1 should 
have been glad to ask him by what specific act, 



and at what precise time, any one of those 
States took itself out of the American Union. 
Was it by the ordinance of secession? 1 think 
we all agree that an ordinance of secession 
passed by any State of this Union is simply a 
nullity, because it encounters in its practical 
operation the Constitution of the United States, 
which is the supreme law of the land. It could 
have no legal, actual force or validity. It 
could not operate to effect any actual change 
in the relations of the State adopting it to the 
national Government, still less to accomplish 
the removal of that State 0"om the sovereign 
jurisdiction of the Constitution of the United 
States. 

Well, sir, did the resolutions of these States, 
the declarations of their ofTicials, the speeches 
of members of their Legislatures, or the utter- 
ances of their press accomjjlish the result? 
Certainly not. They could not possibly work 
any change whatever in the relations of these 
States to the General Government. All their 
ordinances and all their resolutions were sim- 
ply declarations of a purpose to secede. Their 
secession, if it ever took place, certainly could 
not date from the time when their intention to 
secede was first announced. After declaring 
that intention, they proceeded to carry it into 
effect. How? By war. By sustaining their 
purpose by arms against the force which the Uni- 
ted States brought to bear against it. Did they 
sustain it? Were their arms victorious? If 
they were, then their secession was an accom- 
plished fact. If not, it was nothing more thtvn 
an abortive attempt — a purpose unfulfilled. 
This, then, is simply a Cj^uestion of fact, and we 
all know what the fact is. They did not suc- 
ceed. They failed to maintain their ground by 
force of arms — in other words, they failed to 
secede. 

But the gentleman from Pennsylvania "[Mr. 
Stevens] insists that they did secede, and that 
this fact is not in the least affected by the other 
fact that the Constitution forbids secession. 
He says that the law forbids murder, but that 
murders are nevertheless committed. But 
there is no analogy between the two cases. If 
secession had been accomplished, if these States 
had gone out, and overcome the armies that 
tried to prevent their going out, then thoprohi- 
bition ot the Constitution could not have al- 
tered the fact. In the case of murder the man 
is killed, and murder is thus committed in spite 
of the law. The fact of killing is essential to 
the committal of the crime; and the fact of go- 
ing out is essential to secession. But in this 
case there was no such fact. I think I need 
not argue any further the jiosition that the rebel 
States have never for one moment, by any or- 
dinances of secession, or by any successful war, 
carried themselves beyond the rightful jurisdic- 
tion of the Constitution of the United States. 
They have interrupted for a time the practical 
enforcement and exercise of that jurisdiction ; 



they rendered it impossible for a time for this 
Government to enforce obedience to its laws ; 
but there has never been an hour when this 
Government, or this Congress, or this House, 
or the gentleman from Pennsj'lvania himself, 
ever conceded that those States were beyond 
the jurisdiction of the Constitution and laws of 
the United States. 

During all these four years of war Congress 
has been making laws for the government of 
those very States, and the gentleman from Penn- 
sylvania has voted for them, and voted to raise 
armies to enforce them. ATliy was this' done if 
they were a separate nation ? Wliy , if they were 
not part of the United States? Those laws were 
made for them as States. Members have. voted 
for laws imposing upon them direct taxes, which 
are ajiportioned, according to the Constitution, 
only "among the several States" according to 
their population. ^ In a variety of ways — to some 
of which the gentleman who preceded me has re- 
ferred — this Congress has by its action assumed 
and asserted that they were still States in the 
Union, though in rebellion, and that it was with 
the rebellion that we were making war, and not 
with the States themselves as States, and still 
less as a separate, as a foreign, Power. 

The gentleman from Pennsylvania cited a 
variety of legal precedents and declarations of 
principle, nearly all of them, I believe, drawn 
from the celebrated decision of the Supreme 
Court pronounced by Justice Grier, in what 
are popularly known as the Prize Cases. His 
citations were all made for the purpose of prov- 
ing that these States were in a condition of pub- 
lic war — that they were waging such a war as 
could only be waged by a separate and independ- 
ent Power. But a careflil scrutiny of that de- 
cision will show that it lends not the slightest 
countenance to such an inference. Gentlemen 
who hear me will doubtless recollect that the 
object of the trial in those cases was to decide 
whether certain vessels, captured in trying 
to break the blockade, were lawful prize of 
war or not; and the decision of this point 
turned on the question whether the war then 
naging was such a contest as justified a resort 
to the modes and usages of public war, of 
which blockade was one. Justice Grier de- 
cided that it was — that, so far as the purposes 
and weapons of war were concerned, the two 
parties were belligerents, and that the Govern- 
ment might blockade the ports and capture 
property within the lines of the district in 
rebellion, precisely as if that district were an 
independent nation engaged in a public war. 
But he said not one word which could assert 
or imply that it was an independent nation — 
that it had a separate existence, or had gone 
out of the sovereign jurisdiction of the United 
States. On the contrary, everything he said — 
the very passages quoted by the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania himself — imply and assert pre- 
cisely the opposite. He speaks of them, not 



as sovereign, but as claiming to be sovereign ; 
not as being separate, but as trying to be sepa- 
rate from the United States. In this paragraph 
quoted from that decision, for example — 

"Hence, in orjrnnizing: this rebellion, they have 
acted as States clainnnfi to be sovereign over all per- 
sons and property within their respective limits, and 
asserting a right to absolve their citizens from their 
allcKiancc to the Federal Government. Several of 
those States have combined to form a new confed- 
eracy, cluimina to be acknowledged by the world as a 
sovereign State. Their ris^t to do so is now being 
decided by loager of battle" — 

'the court asserts precisely the principle which 
I have already stated — that they were claim- 
ing independence, and that the validity of their 
claim would dejiend wholly and entirely upon 
the decision reached in the field of battle. The 
same misconstruction is traceable in all the 
legal citations made by the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania. For example, he says : 

"Again, the court say, what I have been astonished 
that any one should donbt: 

" 'The proclamation of blockade is itself official and 
conclusive evidence to the court that a state of war 
existed.' 

" Now, what was the legal result of such war? 

" ' The conventions, the treaties, made with a nation, 
are broken or annulled by a war arising between the 
contracting parties.'— Fa«e4 372; Halleck, 371, see- 
tiou 23." 

A blockade is evidence that a state of war 
exists ; and a state of war annuls all treatieg 
between the contending parties. But does thi« 
warrant the inference that the Constitution of 
the United States, which is not a treaty, was 
annulled, or its binding force in the least degree 
impaired, by the war of rebellion? 

But I will not go further in examining these 
citations. All they show is that the Government, 
as against the rebels, and in waging the war to 
suppress the rebellion, had the rights of belli- 
gerents, and that the rules and laws of war might 
and must be applied to this contest although it 
was not a war between separate and independ- 
ent Powers. How, then, can this decision pos- 
sibly be made to convey the idea that the parties 
to the war were separate and independent 
States? It proceeds throughout and in every 
part upon precisely the opposite idea. 

The gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Sth- 
VENs] spoke of States forfeiting their State ex- 
istence by the fact of rebellion. "Well, I do 
not see how there can be any sitch forfeiture 
involved or implied. The individual citizens 
of those States went into the rebellion. Thej 
thereby incurred certain penalties under the 
laws and Constitution of the United States. 
What the States did was to endeavor to in- 
terpose their State authority between the in- 
dividuals in rebellion and the Government of 
the United States, which assurued, and which 
would carry out the assumption, to declare 
those individuals traitors for their acts. The 
individuals in the States who were in rebellion, 
it seems to me, were the only parties who under 
the Constitution and laws of the United States 



6 



coulil incur the penalties of treason. I know 
of no. law, I know of nothing in the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, I know of nothing in 
any reeo,irnize(l or ostaVlishod code of interna- 
tional law, which can punish a State as a State 
for any act it may perform. It is certain that 
our Constitution assumes nothing of the kind. 
It does not deal with States, except in one or 
two instances, such as elections of members of 
Congress, and the election of electors of Pres- 
ident and Vice President. 

Indeed, the main feature which distinguishes 
the Union under the Constitution from the old 
Confederation is this, that whereas the old Con- 
federation did deal with St.ates directly, making 
requisitions upon them for supplies and relying 

Sion them for the execution of its laws, the 
)nstitution of the United States, in order to 
form a more perfect Union, made its laws bind- 
ing on the individual citizens of the sevei'al 
States, whether living in one State or in another. 
Congress, as the legislative branch of this Gov- 
ernment, enacts a law which shall be operative 
upon every individual within its jurisdiction. It 
is binding ujion each individual citizen, and if 
he resists it by force he is guilty of a crime and 
is punished accordingly, anything in the con- 
stitution or laws of his State to the contrary not- 
withstanding. But the States themselves are 
npt touched by the laws of the United States 
or by the Constitution of the United States. A 
State cannot be indicted; a State cannot be 
tried : a State cannot l)e hung for treason. The 
individuals in a State may be so tried and hung, 
but the State as an organization, as an organic 
meml;er of the Union, still exists, whether its 
individual citizens commit treason or not. 

Mr. KELLEY. "Will the gentleman from New 
York [Mr. K.vymoxd] yield to me a moment 
fdr a question ? 

Mr. iMYMOND. Certainly. 

Mr. KELLEY. I desire to ask the gentleman 
this question : by virtue of what does a State 
exist? Is it by virtue of a constitution, and by 
virtue of its relations to the Union? That is, 
does a State of the Union exist, first by virtue 
of a constitution, and secondly by virtue of its 
practical relations to the Government of the 
United States? And further, I would ask 
whether ttft)£-> States, acting by conventions of 
the jieople, have not overthrown the constitu- 
tion which made them parts of the Union, and 
thereby destroyed or suspended — phrase it as 
you will — the practical relations which made 
them parts of the Union? 

Mr. UAYMONU. I will say, in reply to the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Kelley,] 
tliat it is not the practical relations of a State at 
any particular moment which make it a State 
or a part of the Union. Wliat nmkes a State 
aj)art of the Union is the Constitution of the 
L nited States ; and the rebel States have not 
yet destroyed that. 

Mr. KELLEY. The question I propound is, 



whether a State does not exist by virtue of a 
constitution, its constitution, which is a thing 
which may be modified or overthrown? 

Mr. PvAYMOND. Certainly. 

Mr. KELLEY. And whether those rebel- 
lious constitutions or States have not been 
overthrown? 

Mr. IIAYMOXD. A State does not exist 
by virtue of any particular constitution. It 
always has a constitution, but it need not have 
a specific constitution at any specific time. A 
State has certain practical relations to the Gov- 
ernment of the United States. But the fact of 
those relations being practically operative and 
in actual force at any moment does not consti- 
tute its relationship to the Government or its 
menibership of the United States. Its prac- 
tical operation is one thing. The fact of its 
existence as an organized community, one of 
the great national community of States, is quite 
another thing. 

Mr. KELLEY. Let me interrupt the gen- 
tleman one moment longer. I will ask hiiii 
whether, if the constitution be overthrown or 
destroyed and its practical relations cease, 
there be any State left? 

Mr. RAYMOND. \Yhy, sir, if there be no 
constitution of any sort in a State, no law, noth- 
ing but chaos, then that State would no longer 
exist as an organization. But that ha.s not 
been the case, it never is the ease in great com- 
munities, for they always have constitutions and t 
forms of government. It may not l)e a con- 
stitution or form of government adapted to 
its relation to the Government of the United 
States ; and that would be an evil to be reme- 
died by. the Government of the United States. 
That is what we have been trying to do for the 
last four years. The practical relations of the 
governments of those States with the Govern- 
ment of the United States were all wrong — were 
hostile to that Govcrnjncnt. They denied our 
jurisdiction, and they denied that they were 
States of the Union, but their denial did not 
change the fact: and there was never any time 
when their organizations as States were de- 
stroyed. A dead State is a solecism, a contra- 
diction in terms, an impossibility. 

These are, I confess, rather metaphysical 
distinctions, but I did not raise them.' Those 
who assert that a State is destroyed whenever 
its constitution is changed, or whenevei; its 
practical relations with this Government are 
changed, must be held responsible for whatever 
metaphysical niceties mhy be necessarily in- 
volved in the discussion. 

I do not know, sir, that I have made my 
views on this jtoint clear to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania, [Mr. Jvkllet,] who hns ques- 
tioned me upon it, and I. am still more doubtful 
whether, even if they are intelligible, he will 
concur with me as to their justice. 13ut I re- 
gard these States as just as truly within the juris- 
diction of the Constitution, and therefore just as 



really and truly States of the American Union 
now as they were before the war. Their prac- 
tical relations to the Constitution of the United 
States have been disturbed, and we have been 
endeavoring, through four years of war, to re- 
store them and make them what they were before 
the war. The victory in the field has given us 
the means of doing this ; we can now reestablish 
tiie practical relations of those States to the 
Government. Our actual jurisdiction over 
them, which they vainly attempted to throw off, 
is already restored. The conquest we have 
achieved is a conquest over the rebellion, not a 
conquest over the States whose authority the 
.rebellion had for a time subverted. 

For these reasons I think the \-iews submit- 
ted by the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. 
Stevens] upon this point are unsound. Let 
me next cite some of the consequences which, 
it seems to me, must follow the acceptance of 
his position. If, as he asserts, we have been 
waging war with an independent Power, with a 
separate nation, I cannot see how we can talk 
of tz-eason in connection with our recent conflict 
or demand the execution of Davis or anybody 
else as a traitor. Certainly if we were at war 
with any other foreign Power we should not 
talk of the treason of those who were opposed 
to us in the field. If we were engaged in a war 
with France and should take as pi-isoner the 
Emperor Napoleon, certainly we could not talk 
of him as a traitor or as liable to execution. I 
think that by adopting any such assumption aS 
that of the honorable gentleman, we surrender 
the whole idea of treason and the punishment 
of t^'aitors. I think, moreover, thatwe accept, 
\"irtually and ^practically, the doctrine of State 
sovereignty, the right of a State to withdraw 
from the Union, and to break up the Union at 
its own will and pleasure. I do not see how 
upon those premises we can escape that conclu- 
sion. If the States that engaged in the late 
rebellion constituted themselves, by their ordi- 
nances of secession or by anj' of the acts- with 
which they followed those ordinances, a sepa- 
rate and independent Power, I do not see how 
we can deny the principles on which they pro- 
fessed to act, or refuse assent to their practical 
results. I have heard no clearer, no stronger 
statement of the doctrine of State sovereignty 
as paramount to the sovereignty of the nation 
than would be involved in such a- concession. 
Whether he intended it or not, the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevexs] actually as- 
sents to the extreme doctrines of the advocates 
of secession. 

Mr. NIBLACK. I beg leave to inquire of 
the gentleman whether the theory of the gentle- 
man from Pennsylvania, which he is combating, 
would not also, if carried to its legitimate con- 
sequences, make those who resisted the con- 
federacy in the insurrectionary States guilty of 
treason to the confederacy or to those States ? 

Mr. PtAYMOND. I was just going to remark 



that another of the consequences of this doc- 
ti-ine, as it seems to me, would be our inability 
to talk of loyal men in the South. Loyal to 
what ? Loyal to a foreign, independent Power, 
as the United States would become under those 
circumstances? Certainly not. Simply disloyal 
to their own Government, and deserters, or 
whatever you may choose to call' them, from 
that to which they would owe allegiance to a 
foreign and independent State. 

Now, there is another consequence of the doc- 
trine which I shall not dwell upon, but sjmply 
suggest. If that confederacy was an independ- 
ent Power, a separate nation, it had the right 
to contract debts ; and we, having overthrown 
and conquered that independent Power, accord- 
ing to the theory of the gentleman from Penn- 
sylvania, would become the successors, tlft; in- 
heritors, of its debts and assets, and we must 
pay them. . Sir, that is not simply a theory or 
a claim thrown out in debate here : it is one 
advanced on behalf of the Government of Great 
Britain as against us. Every gentleman will 
remember the case in which cotton belonging 
to the southern confederacy was claimed in 
Liverpool, and the decision there was ■ 

Mr. JENCKES. Will the gentleman allow 
me to ask him a question? 

Mr. RAYMOND. Certainly. 

Mr. JENCKES. From what informatioti 
does the gentleman state that that point was 
taken by the Government of Great Britain? 

Mr. RAYMOND. Well, sir, I do not mean 
to be understood as saying that the point was 
taken by the Government of Great Britain 
itself 

Mr. JENCKES. That is a very essential 
distinction. 

Mr. RAYMOND. But that the point was 
taken on behalf of the claimants in Great Brit- 
ain, and the Vice Chancellor of England gave 
a decision which substantially covered that 
point and asserted the docti-ine I haVe stated. 

Mr. JENCKES. But which is not law either 
in England or in any other country recognizing 
international law. 

Mr. RAYMOND. That is a matter between 
the honorable gentleman from Rhode Island 
and the Vice Chancellor of Great Britain. The 
point I wish to make is simply this, that our 
Government has denied from the beginning, and 
denies now, that the confederacy was ever such 
a corporation, such an independent body of 
men as could contract debts, whether we are 
liable for them or not. The declaration of our 
Secretary of State in his recent corret^pond- 
ence on that subject shows that we have always 
steadily denied that the confederacy was such 
a corporation as could contract a valid debt, 
whether we would be made resi)onsible tor it or 
not. ■ But one thing is very clear, that if we rec- 
ognize the doctrine that those lately in rebellion 
against our Government constituted an inde- 
pendent Power, we must concede their ability to 



8 



contract debts. Whether we as their successors 
are to pay them or not is another question, but 
the chum has been made, and denied only on 
the ground of the incapacity of the rebel con- 
federacy to contract debts or binding engage- 
ments of any sort. 

Now, sir, I liave dwelt upon these points 
longer than I intended. I do not think that the 
doctrine I have l)pen combating is iield by any 
consid('ral)le number of the people of this coun- 
try, or, indeed, l)y any considerable number of 
the nunnbcrs of this lipuse. I certainly do not 
thirds these States arc to be dealt with by us as 
provinces — as simply so much territorj' — held 
to us by no other ties than those of conquest. 
I think we are to deal with them as States, 
having State governments, still subject tothe 
jurisdiction of the Constitution and laws of the 
United States; still under the constitutional 
control of the national Government; and that, 
in our dealings with them we arc to be guided 
and governed, not simply by our sovereign will 
and pleasure as conquerors, but by the restric- 
tions and limitations of the Constitution of the 
United States — precisely as we are restrained 
and limited in our dealings with all other States 
of the American Union. 

Mr. FAliNSWOllTH. I would like to ask 
the gentleman from New York whether he is 
entirely sure we have the right to try Jefferson 
Davis for treason inasmuch as our Government 
has given to them belligerent rights, has recog- 
nized and respected the commissions that he 
has issued? 

Mr. RAYMOND. Ihavenodoubfof it; not 
the slightest. I do not think that the treason 
of Jeticrson Davis has anj'thiug to do with the 
fact that we conceded humane treatment to our 
prisoners of war. I merely alluded to the mat- 
ter — I might have elaborated it — when I said 
that because we had granted to these States, as 
a Power waging war, rights usually accorded to 
nations at war, we were not therefore concluded 
from proceeding against them as traitors. 

The decision of the Supreme Court, to i'hich 
I have once referred, if I understand it aright, 
asserts that we have the right to proceed 
against them as traitors, or rather that we had 
the right to exercise against them both the 
powers of sovereignty and of belligerents ; that 
the one did not exclude the other. It would be 
an extraordinary circumstance if, because we 
treated them humanely as prisoners of ^yar, 
we have not the right to hold them responsible 
to the laws they have|bi'oken. 

" /( in (1 proponition never doubted" — 

says Justice Grier, in the decision so often re- 

iqerent party who claims to be sover- 
rcixii both belHacrcnt end soverciiin riiihts. 

„ ..i other partj' as a bclli?erent, and u.sinf? 

Jnly the milder modes of coercion which tiie law of 
nations has introduced to mitigate tlio rieors of war, 
cnnnot bo a subjeet of complaint, [or of claim,! by the 
pnrly to whom it it accorded ud a graco or grantod as 
a necessity." 




Now, if according to the view I have pre- « 
scntcd, wo are to deal with those States as 
States within the Union, the next question that 
recurs is, hoic are we to deal with them? The 
gentleman from Ohio [^Ir. Fixck] who pre- 
ceded me took the ground that they had only 
to resume their places and their powers in the 
national Government — that their Kepresent- 
ativcs have only to come into this Hall and 
take their seats without question and without 
conditions of any sort. 1 cannot concur, sir, 
in this view. 1 do not think these States have 
any such rights. On the contrary, 1 think we 
have a full and perfect right to require certain 
conditions, in the nature of guarantees for th(i 
future, and that right rests, primarily and tech- 
nically, on the surrender we may and must re- 
quire at their hands. The rebellion has been 
defeated. A defeat always implies a surren- 
der, and in apolitical sense a surrender im- 
plies more than the transfer of the arms used 
on the iield of battle. It implies, in the case 
of civil war, a surrender of the principles and 
doctrines, of all the weapons and agencies, by 
which the war has been carried on. The mil- 
itary surrender was made on the field of battle, 
to our generals as the agents and representa- 
tives of the Commander-in-Chiefof the armies 
of the United States. But this is not all. 
They have still to surrender 

Mr. JENCKES. If the gentleman will al- 
low me I will ask him a question. Was not 
the surrender of the rebel arms made to the 
people of the United States? 

Mr. RAYMOND. It ought to be, and must 
be to them through their representatives. . 

Mr. JENCKES. I made the remark to cor- 
rect what seemed to be an erroneous impres- 
sion. 

Mr. RAYMOND. Well, I do not see any 
correction in what the gentleman has said, or 
any error in what I said. The rebels sur- 
rendered to the generals of our armies, who 
were commissioned by the President of the 
United States, himself the representative of 
the people. 

Mr. JENCKES. Not to the generals as the 
agents of the President, but as the representa- 
tives of the military authority of the people of 
the United States. 

Mr. RAYMOND. Why certainly all author- 
ity belongs to the people. It is a mere distinc- 
tion of words, and scarcely that. 

Mr. JENCKES. I beg pardon of the gen- 
tleman. It seems to rao that it is an essential 
distinction. 

Mr. RAYMOND. Well, if it seems impor- 
tant to the gentleman from Rhode Island or to 
anybody else, I am quite willing to make the 
addition to my remark which he suggests. I 
will say then that in surrendering on the field 
of battle, they surrendered to the generals who 
v.crc in command of the armies, as agents of 
the President of the Unitfed States, who was and 



9 



is the representative of the people of the United 
States. If that expUination is satisfactory to the 
gentleman I am very happy to make it ; and 
perhaps I am obliged to him for having enabled 
me to state it a little more specifically and accu- 
rately than I did at first. 

Now, there must be at the end of the war a 
similar surrender on the political field of con- 
troversy. That surrender is due as an act of 
justice from the defeated party to the victorious 
party. It is due also, and we have a right to 
exact it, as a guarantee for the future. Why do 
we demand the surrender of their arms by the 
vanquished in every battle ? We do it that they 
may not renew the contest. Why do we seek 
in this and all similar cases a surrender of the 
principles, for which they fought? It is that 
they may never again be made the basis of 
controversy and rebellion against the Govern- 
ment of the United States. 

Now, what are those principles which should 
be thus surrendered? The principle of State 
sovereignty is one of them. It was the corner- 
stone of the rebellion — at once its animating 
spirit, and its fundamental basis. Deeply in- 
grained as it was in the southern heart, it must 
be surrendered. The ordinances in which it 
was embodied must not only be repealed, the 
principle itself must be abandoned, and the 
ordinances, so far as this war is concerned, be 
declared null and void, a,nd that declaration 
must be embodied in their fundamental consti- 
tutions. We have a right to insist upon this ; 
and it must be apparent that so far as that prin- 
ciple is concerned, this war was a permanent 
success. 

Mr. BINGHAM. The gentleman will allow 
me to make the inquiry whether if that were 
done to-day by South Carolina, and the people 
of that insurgent State restored to all their 
powers in this Union, they could not blot it out 
to-morrow, by every construction that has ever 
been given to the operation of the Constitution 
of the United States upon any State maintain- 
ing its relations to this Government? What 
guarantee would that be? 

Mr. EAYMOND. I might as well ask the 
gentleman whether if this Congress pass a cer- 
tain law to-day they may not repeal it to-mor- 
row. I do not know anjrthing that any com- 
munity can do that they cannot undo at some 
future time. 

Mr. BINGHAM. When the gentleman talks 
of guarantees to the people of the United States, 
I ask him whether there is not some other 
method that occurs to him by which these guar- 
antees can be obtained than to submit simply to 
the will of the insurgent States? Is it not to be 
done by putting the guarantee in the Constitu- 
tion of the whole peofile of the United States, 
^nd thus placing it beyond the power of South 
Carolina to repeal it? 

Mr. RAYMOND. Well, Mr. Chairman, there 
have l>een a good many things put in the G^- 



stitution of the United States which South Car-, 
olina did not deem beyond her power, and they 
undertook to prove that fact, but they did not 
succeed. My own impression is that v\'hatever 
is now a part of the Constitution and laws of 
this country is beyond the power of South Car- 
olina to disturb. I might as well ask the gen- 
tleman whether, when the enemy surrendered its 
ordnance in the field, we ought not to refuse 
to accei:)t it because they might possibly at some 
future day come and recapture it. 

Mr. BINGHAM. The gentleman will ex- 
cuse me. He talked of new guarantees. The 
people of the United States undoubtedly de- 
mand them. But I wish him to answer intel- 
ligibly what new guarantee is given by incor- 
porating in the constitution of South Carolina 
the mere formula that she by her constitution 
declares that she has not the right to secede, 
when she has the power the very next day to 
strike it out ? Is that a new guarantee? 

Mr. RAYMOND, Certainly it is. Thathas 
never been in the constitution of South Caro- 
lina before. If she puts it there now, it is a new 
guarantee, is it not ? Whether it is an adequate 
form of that guarantee or not, is another ques- 
tion which I have not discussed. South Caro- 
lina has always hitherto asserted the right of 
secession, andunder that assertion sheattempted 
to secede. If she now repudiates or abandons 
that right, we have certainly that new assurance 
that she will not renew the attempt. We shall 
certainly have this tangible admission on her 
part, that if she does again rebel, it will be in 
direct repudiation and contempt of her own 
principles. I will not say that nothing more 
would be desired or accepted. I am quite 
willing, if it can be done, to put that acknowl- 
edgment into the Constitution of the United 
States. But I think it is there now, and that 
it always has been there, and that there is no 
more doubt about it now than if it were stated 
in express terms. When I read in the Consti- 
tution of the United States, that "this Consti- 
tution shall be the supreme law of the land, any- 
thing in the constitution or laws of any State to 
the contrary notwithstanding," I deem that to 
be as plain as any declaration can be against 
the doctrine of State sovereignty, and I cannot 
believe that any form of words on our part 
would be more explicit or more emphatic. But 
if the gentleman can get any more explicit 
denial into the Constitution of the United States, 
he will find me voting for it every time. 

Mr. BINGHAM. Then the gentleman ad- 
mits that there is no necessity for any new guar- 
antee from a State. 

Mr. RAYMOND. I have made no such ad- 
mission. I hav6 said that it was in the Consti- 
tution of the United States before the rebellion, 
and that it is now in the constitution of the State 
of South Carolina also, where it never was be- 
fore ; and that it is certainly a new guarantee, 
whether worth much or little. 



10 



Now there is another thing to be surrendered 
by the defeated rebellion, und that is the obli- 
gation to pay llie rebel war debt. 

Mr. SCUEN'CK. Will the gentleman allow 
me to incjuire whether that guarantee in the con- 
ptitutioii of South Carolina amounts to anything 
I'nore than the signature of an indorscr on the 
back of a note, who may at any time thereafter 
take his name from the paper? 

Mr. JiAYMOND. Perhapsnot; perhaps you 
can get better security. If you can, I cer- 
tJiinly shall not object. But such as it is, it 
is at all events something gained, audit is only 
in that light that I liavc referred to it. Neither 
of the distinguished gentlemen from Ohio, 
[Messrs. Bingham andScuENCK,] able lawyers 
as they are, will deny that we had the right to 
demand that of South Carolina. And if it was 
worth while to demand it, it is hardly worth 
while, having got it, to say that it is of no value 
nt all. We expose ourselves by so doing to 
the imputation of trifling in having demanded 
it at all. 

Mr. BINGHAM. I have no doubt at all that 
the people of the United States, those who 
maintained the integrity of their Constiution, had 
the right to demand of South Carolina a per- 
petual guarantee in the future that she should 
not even claim the color of authority to secede 
and set up a government against the consti- 
tutional authority of the Government of the 
nation. And when they demand that, I take 
it that the people of the United States are 
not to be told that South Carolina alone is to 
have the control and keeping of that guarantee. 
But the people of the United States are here- 
after to be the guardians of their own honor, 
and the protectors of their own nationality, and 
they, will take into their own keeping those 
great guarantees that are to secure peace and 
prosperity to every section of the Union in 
future, and to secure themselves against this 
work of secession under the pretense of State 
sovereignty. 

Mr. RAYMOND. Will the gentleman from 
Ohio [Mr. Bixgham] inform me who has ever 
pretended that the people of the nation are 
not to take into their own hands the guarantees 
of their own security and their own iionor? 

Mr. BINGHAM. Whoever pretends that 
future guarantees against the pretension of the 
right of a State to secede is to rest with the 
State alone, stands simply and solely on the 
resolutions of Virginia of 1798, out of the 
pernicious assumptions of which came all our 
trouble. 

Mr. RAYMOND. Will the gentleman say 
whether I ever took anv such ground? 

Mr. BINGHAM. I'do not say that the gen- 
tleman has. But the gentleman says that the 
guarantee is to remain in the constitution of the 
State. 

Mr, RAYMOND. Does that imply thatit is 
iHjver to be anywhere else? 



"Mr. BINGHAM. That is the point. 

Mr. RAYMOND. And I want an answer to 
that point. The gentleman tries to fasten upon 
me a position that I have never taken. And it 
required all his ingenuity to reach the point ai, 
which he has at last arrived. I .<aid that we 
have a right to require from the people of South 
Carolina the abandonment of their doctrine of 
secession. Now, whether we may not also re- 
quire that the people of the United States shall 
reaffirm that and put it into the Constitution of 
the United States, is a thing about which I 
have said nothing whatever, exccjit that when- 
ever presented in a j^roper form it will have my 
assent. 

Mr. BINGHAM. I am glad to hear the gen- 
tleman say that. For if these guarantees are 
essential, and the gentleman seems to agree 
that they are, then it is highly important that 
the American people should determine them, 
without being interrupted in the settlement 
of that question by the intervention of South 
Carolina under the pretension that she is a 
State in this Union, with all the reserved rights 
of a State. What right, I would ask, has she 
to set up any such pretension? 

Mr. RAYMOND. Well, Mr. Chairman, the 
gentleman must settle that matter with South 
Carolina. 

/Mr. BINGHAM. I propose, in cooperation 
with the loyal people and their Representatives 
in Congress, to settle it with South Carolina. 
. Mr. RAYMOND. I can only say on that 
subject that South Carolina found herself in- 
vited by the President of the United States, 
the representative of the people of the United 
States, as the gentleman from Rhode Island 
[Mr. Jenckes] very properly insists that I shall 
term him, to cooperate in the restoration of the 
Union — to resume her functions as a State of 
the Union, and, as a preliminary step, to repu- 
diate this debt and give this guarantee of her 
loyalty and good faith. 

Mr. BINGHAM. I beg the gentleman's par- 
don. I do not think he can find anywhere any 
authority for the statement that the President 
of the United States ever invited South Caro- 
lina to exercise any voice or vote on that ques- 
tion here. I would like the gentleman to in- 
form us when and wliere .the' President of the 
United States invited South Carolina to do it. 

Mr. JENCKES. He invited the people liv- 
ing upon the territory which was formerly the 
State of South Carolina. 

Mr. RAYMOND. The President in his mes- 
sage says : 

"I know very well thnt this policy is attended with 
some ri.sk ; that fur its fiuccess it roquiros at least tho 
acquiescence of tlic States which it cdiuorus; that it 
iniplit'S an invitation to those States, by renewing 
tiieir allegiance to the United States, to rosudie their 
functions as States of the Union." 

Mr. BINGHAM. Undoubtedly. 
Mr. RAYMOND. That is precisely vhat I 
and all that I said. 



sg|, 



11 



Mr. BINGHAM. That does not touch the 
point of my inquiry, Avhich is this: has the 
President of the United States, in any phice 
or at any time, intimated that South Carolina 
sustains such relations to this Union, notwith- 
standing her rebellion, that she has the right to 
interpose here in Congress her voice in this 
question of settling the adoption of these guar- 
antees, and tendering them to the American 
j)eople by a vote in Congress? That is what I 
mean exactly. 

Mr. RAYMOND. Well, Mr. Chairman, this 
is ■wandering considerably from the point. I 
have said nothing as yet about, the admission 
into Congress of South Carolina, or any other 
of the States now unrepresented here. The 
President certainly has indicated to the south- 
ern wStates that ho expected them to declare, 
in their constitutions, that their ordinances of 
secession were null and void ; and in his me3-_ 
sage he speaks of an invitation to them to' 
renew their functions as States of the Union ; 
and that covers the whole ground that I at- 
tempted to speak upon in connection with this 
point. Possilily, if I am allowed to proceed 
without interruption, I shall, indue time, reach 
some other point of this discussion. 

Mr. BINGHAM. I have no desire to do 
anything else than to elicit the truth in refer- 
ence to this matter. I only wish to know the 
gentleman's position — to ascertain whether it 
IS or is not that South Carolina and other 
seceding States now sustain such relations to 
diis Union that they have the right to-day, 
under the Constitution, to have representation 
upon this floor according to the apportionment 
of 18C2. 

Mr. RAYMOND. Without any guarantees 
or conditions at all? 

Mr. BINGHAM. I contend that all guar- 
antees are worthless, unless embodied in the 
Constitution of the United States. 

Mr. RAYMOND. I suppose that when we 
get at the plain English of the "matter, the 
gentleman means to ask me whether I am will- 
ing to vote for admitting Representatives from 
South Carolina unless the annulment of the 
ordinance of secession is incorporated into the 
Constitution of the United States. 

Mr. BINGHAM. No, sir; I do not ask the 
gentleman that question. 

Mr. RAYMOND: Then I must say that I 
do not see any practical point in the gentle- 
man's inquiry, and with his permission I will 
go on with my argument. 

Mr. BINGHAM. The only practical point 
of my inquiry is this : does the gentleman in- 
sist that South Carolina has now the right, under 
the Constitution, to representation in Congress 
as a State of the Union because her relations 
to the Government are, under the Constitution, 
those of a constitutional State in the Union ? 
Is that the gentleman's position, or is it not? 

Mr. RAYxMOND. I have already said, sir, 



and said it as clearly and emphatically as I can, 
that we have a right to demand, and that we 
are in duty bound to demand, certain conces- 
sions from all the States lately in rebellion, as 
parts of their surrender, and as conditions of 
their resuming their functions in the Govern- 
ment of the nation. As to their representation 
in Congress, I should, before determining that 
question, wish to know something more of the 
character and position of the men they may 
send, and of what they have done. 

Mr. BINGHAM. So do I ; and I think that 
Congress ought to decide the question. 

Mr. RAYMOND. I have not assumed to 
decide that point. I have not said anything 
about what the southern States have done. I 
have simply said what we have a right to re- 
quire them to do ; and the renunciation of the 
doctrine of State sovereignty is one thing that 
we have a right to require at their hands. We 
have a right also to reqtiire them to do another 
thing — to repudiate their obligation for debts 
incuM-ed in carrying on the war against the 
Government. This, I am sure, the gentleman 
does not dispute or doubt. Whether they have 
done this or not, is another matter, which may 
come up at another time. We have the right 
to require this repudiation of their debt, be- 
cause the money represented by that debt was 
one of the weapons with which they carried on 
the war against the Government of the United 
States. 

Mr. BINGHAM. If they should repudiate 
that debt by State legislation, or by an amend- 
ment of the State constitution— I do not care 
in what form they may do it — does not the gen- 
tleman admit that the very next year they might 
assume to pay that debt? 

Mr. RAYMOND. Certainly, they might. 

Mr. BINGHAM. Then, if under the pres- 
ent condition of things they were allowed to re- 
sttme full relations to the Union, they might 
the very next year assume the payment of that 
debt. 

Mr. RAYMOND. Possibly thev might. 

Mr. BINGHAM. Very well; I want the 
American people to understand this issue, and 
to have the opi:)ortunity to say, by amendment 
of the United States Constitution, whether that 
power shall not be expressly denied to every 
State of the Union. 

Mr. RAYMOND. I do not think the Ameri- 
can people are at all liable to forget the fact. 

Mr. BINGHAM. AVell, they might happen 
to be misled by the remark of the gentleman, 
that we should require those States simply to 
repudiate that debt. 

_ Mr. RAYMOND. I do not think they pos- 
sibly could be, because that does not imply 
anything about the power of those States here- 
after. I am simply speaking of vhat we have 
the right to require them to do. 

There is another thing which we have the 
right to require ; and that is the prohibition of 



12 



slavery. We have the right to require them to 
do this, not only in their State constitutions, 
but in the Constitution of tlie United States. 
And we have required it, and it has been con- 
ceded. 'I'hey have also conceded that Congress 
may make such laws as may be requisite to 
carry that prohibition into effect, Avhich in- 
cludes such legislation as may be required to 
secure for them protection of their civil and 
personal rights — their "right to life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness." This I am sure 
the gentleman will concede to be a substantial 
guaniiilee — one jilaced beyond the power of 
any Slate to recall or rcjieal. 

These things the President of the United 
States has deemed it his right, as Commander- 
in-Chief of the armies of the United States, to 
demand at the hands of the States which have 
been defeated in tiieir attempt to separate them- 
selves from the Union, as the condition of re- 
laxing the bonds of military aiithcn-ity over them 
and restoring to them again the control of their 
local State affairs. He made these the condi- 
tions npon which they would be allowed, so far 
as his rightful authority extended, to resume 
the ])ract ieal exercise of their functions as mem- 
bers of the Union, which had been suspended 
by their rebellion. He has done this in the 
exercise of his lawful authority as Commandcr- 
in-Cliief of the Army of tlie United States, and 
was tlicreforc responsible for the complete sup- 
pression of the rebellion and the restoration of 
peace, order, and loyalty in the regions where 
they have l>een for a time disturbed and over- 
thrown. He has done it through agents, ex- 
orcising a delegated and just authority^acting 
on his behalf and in his name — ^just as his mil- 
itary generals prescribed the terms and condi- 
tions of the rebel surrender in the field ; and the 
fact that these concessions have been granted, 
affords at least a fair presumittion that those 
who make them intend he'reatter in good faith 
to abide by all the obligations and fulfill all the 
duties imposed by the Constitution and laws of 
the United States. It may possibly be wise for 
us to dismiss all these concessions and all these 
guarantees given by eight million people, and 
sanctioned l)y the most solemn forms of legis- 
lation, as utterly worthless and insincere. But 
that is a matter upon whicli eaah individual 
must exercise his own discretion npon his own 
responsiliility. 

Mr. SPALDING. The gentleman from New 
York has stated that it is right and reasonable 
the demand should be made of the late rebel 
States that they should.assent to an amendment 
to the Constitution prohibiting slavery in the 
Union, and also that it is right and reasonable 
we should require that they should repudiate 
all debts contracted in support of the rebellion. 
Now, I ask Uie gentleman whether there is any 
limit to the right to make these requisitions ex- 
cept the good judgment of Congress? 

Mr. RAYMOND. I think there is. 



Mr. SPALDING. I ask what limit, so that 
wo mny understand, and where docs it belong? 
Who has the power to affix that limit? 

Mr. RAYMOND. My impression is that 
these requisitions are made as a ]>art of the terms 
of surrender which we have a right to demand 
at the hands of tlie defeated insurgents, and that 
it belongs, therefore, to the President as ('om- 
mander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the 
United States to make them, and to fix the limit 
as to wiiat they shall embrace. 

I\[r. BlNtillAM. In regard to that consti- 
tutional amendment : without Congress moving 
first in the matter, and without their action, he 
would never have had the power at all to de- 
mand its ratification by any rebel State. 

Mr. RAY'MOND. Certainly, there are many 
things which could liot be done by the Presi- 
dent without theaction of Congress. 

]\Ir. BINGHAM. Congress is now making 
further provision that an amendment shall be 
made to the Constitution that no State shall 
pay any part of the rebel debt. 

Mr. RAY'MOND. The gentleman is aware 
that it was not Congress but the President who 
required the rebel States to ratify the constitu- 
tional amendment as a condition of the i'e.sump- 
tion of their functions. 

l\lr. BINGHAM. I beg the gentleman's 
pardon. This is an important question, and i 
beg leave to say that he would be a bold man 
who would dare to say that after the loyal States 
had maintained the supremacy of their Consti- 
tution, and more than three fourths of all the 
loyal States had so amended their Constitution, 
that their action was void without the consent 
of the rel)el States, and that after their rebel- 
lion had been subdued by arms, the States in 
rebellion might not only repudiate the amend- 
ment, but of right might come into Congress to 
resist the enforcement of its humane provisions 
by just and needful laws. It was not within the 
power of the President or any other man on this 
earth rightfully to assert any such authority or 
power in the rebel States over the action of the 
loyal people of twenty-two out of the twenty- 
five loyal States. The President never said 
so and never meant to say so. 

Mr. RAYMOND. Well, Mr. Chairman, ae 
the gentleman concedes that the President has 
not said it 

Mr. BINGHAM. No, aftd he could not sav it. 

Mr. RAY'MOND. I do not; know that he 
ever proposed or wished to sav it. 

Mr. BINGHAM. No, but then there wa* 
nothing in the gentleman's remark. 

]Mr. 'RAYMOND. I understand that the 
Government, through the channel designated 
by law, the Secretary of State, when it wa« 
found that three fourths of tlie States had rati- 
fied the amendment, issued a proclamation to 
that effect, naming the States which h.id rati- 
fied it. There was nothing irregular, certainly, 
about that. 



13 



Mr. BINGHAM. The gentleman will note 
that the President made the requisition long 
before three fourths of the States had ratified 
the amendment- 
Mr. RAYMOND. The President did it; 
Congress did not. 

Mr. BINGHAM. What I meant to say was 
this: Congress imposed that obligation upon 
him backed by the power of the people, and 
they have a right again to impose like obliga*- 
tions upon him, r l have, a right to assiime 
that he will cheerLilly and faithfully obey their 
requirements. 

Mr. RAYMOND. I am sorry the gentleman 
seems determined to get up an issue concern- 
ing the action, past or future, of the President 
upon this subject. I am not aware that I have 
given him any provocation for so doing. 

Mr. BINGHAM. The gentleman will ex- 
cnse me. I am sorry to see the gentleman as- 
sume that he alone represents the President. I 
make no issue with the President. ^^ 

Mr. RAYMOND. I certainly have assrJPlid 
rsothing of the kind; and I am very much sur- 
prised to hear the gentleman ascribe to me any- 
thing of the sort. I said nothing about the ac- 
tion of the President except to state the facts. 
I raised no question as to his rights, or as to 
the power of Congress to impose any action 
upon him. I do not know that I gave the gen- 
tleman from Ohio the slightest occasion to assert 
here, with so much warmth as he has shown, 
the paramount power of Congress over the 
President. I raised no question and made no 
remark on the subject. 

Mr. BINGHAM. The gentleman made the 
remark here that I was trying to get up an is- 
sue with the President.. When he said that, I 
replied, as I might very properly do, that I v/as 
surprised that tlie gentleman should assume to 
speak for the President. • 

Mr. RAYMOND. I did not assuipe, in any 
way whatever, anything of the kind. 

Mr. BINGHAM. And I respectfully deny 
the gentleman's assertion that I seek to make 
an issue with the President. 

[Here the hammer fell.] 

Mr. CONKLING. Inasmuch as my col- 
leegue has been very much interrupted, I ask 
that by unanimous consent his time be ex- 
tended, [Cries of ''Agreed!"] 

No objection was made. 

Mr. MORRILL. As the gentleman from 
New York evidently intended to reply to the 

fentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Stevens,] 
hope he will be allowed to go on uninter- 
ruptedly. 

Mr. RAYMOND. I am very much surprised 
to find myself involved in such a controversy. 
I did not rise to create or provoke controversy 
with any one upon this floor. I rose to express 
my own dissent from the views propounded here 
by the gentleman from Pennsylvania, and if in 
anything I said after that, embodying my own 



opinions, I gave proper warrant for, I will not 
say attacks upon me, for I do not believe any 
such thing was'uieant, but for the questions pro- 
pounded as to my position on this subject, i am 
very much surprised, but not the less glad of 
this opportunity of stating and explaining what 
it is. I cannot assent to the intimations thrown 
out by the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. 
Stevens,] that the President concurred in the 
views he had expressed, or that he had handed 
the whole subject of pacifying the States lately 
in rebellion, and of restoring the States to the 
practical exercise of their functions as members 
of the Union, to the hands of Congress. I can 
find no warrant in his message for believing that 
he designs thus to abandon duties which ai'e 
evidently, in his judgment, devolved upon him 
as the Executive in the Government, and as 
Commander-in-Chief of the armies of the Uni- 
ted States. On the contrary, I find him rehears- 
ing, in clear and explicit language, the steps he 
has taken to restore the rightful energy of the 
General Government and the States. ' ' To that 
end," he says, 

"Provisional governors havebeen appointed for the 
States, conventions called, Governors elected, Legisla- 
tures assembled, and Senators and Representatives 
chosen to the Congress of the United States. At the 
same time the courts of the United States, as far as 
could bo done, have been reopened, so that the laws 
of the United States may bo enforced through their 
agency. The blockade has been removed and the cus- 
tom-houses reestablished in ports of entry, so that the 
revenue of the United States may be collected. The 
Post OiBce Department renews its ceaseless aetivity, 
and the General Government is thereby enabled to 
communicate promptly with its officers and agents. 
The courts bring security to persons and property; the 
opening of the ports invites the restoration of indus- 
try and commerce; the post office renews the facili- 
ties of social intercourse and of business." 

He has exercised his power of pardon ; he 
has invited the States lately in rebellion to par- 
ticipate in the ratification of the constitutional 
amendment securing the perpetual prohibition 
of slavery. ' ' This done, ' ' he says, 

"It will remain for the States, whose powers have 
been so long in abeyance, to resume their places in the 
two branches of the nationa.1 Legislature, and there- 
by complete the work of restoration. Ilcve it it for 
you, fcUow-f.iiir.ena of tlte Senate, and for you, fellow- 
citizens of the House of Representatives, to judge, each 
of you for yourselves, of the elections, returns, and 
qualifications of your own members." 

All but this has been done in the exercise of 
his functions and in the performance of his 
duties, as President of the United States, and 
as Commander-in-Chief of their armies. The 
admission of members of Congress, and the 
restoration of the judicial branch of the civil 
authority of the Government, are necessarily 
refex-red to the deliberations and action of Con- 
gress. 

Mr. Chairman, I am here to act with those 
who seek to complete the restoration of the 
Union, as I have acted with those through the 
last four years who have sought to maintain its 
integrity and prevent its destruction. I shall 
say no word and do no act and give no vote to 



14 



recognize its division, or to postpone or disturb 
its rapidly-aiiproaching harmony and peace. 
I have noright and no disposition to lav down 
rules by which others shall govern and guide 
their conduct; but for myself I shall en- 
deavor to act ui)on this whole question in the 
broad and liberal temper which its importance 
demands. We are not conducting a contro- 
versy in a court of law. We are not seeking 
to enforce a remedy for private wrongs, nor to 
revenge or retaliate private griefs. We have 
great comnmnities of men, permanent interests 
of great .Stales, to deal with, and we are bound 
to deal with them in a large and liberal spirit! 
It may be for the welfare of this nation that we 
shall cherish toward the millions of our peo- 
ple lately in rebellion feelings of hatred and 
distrust ; that we shall nurse the bitterness their 
infamous treason has natually and justly engen- 
dered, and make that the basis of our future 
dealings with them. Possibly we may best 
teach them the lessons of liberty, by visiting 
upon them the worst excesses of despotism. 
Possibly they may best learn to practice justice 
toward others, to admire and emulate our re- 
publiotin institutions, by suffering at our hands 
tiie absolute rule we denounce in others. It 
may be best for us and for them that we dis- 
card, in all our dealings with them, all the ob- 
ligations and requirements of the Constitution, 
and assert as the only law for them the unre- 
strained will of conquerors and masters. 

I confess I do not sympathize with the senti- 
ments or the opinions which would dictate such 
acourse. I would exact of them all needed and 
all just guarantees for their future loyalty to the 
Constitution and laws of the United States. I 
would exact from them, or impose upon them 
through the constitutional legislation of Con- 
gress, and by enlarging and extending, if neces- 
sary, the scope and powers of the Frecdmen's 
Bureau, proper care and protection for the help- 
less and friendless freedmen, so lately their 
elaves. I would exercise a rigid scrutiny into 
the character and loyalty of the men whom they 
may send to Congress, before I allowed them 



to participate in the high prerogative of legis- 
latmg for the nation. But I would seek to allay 
rather than stimulate the animosities and hatred, 
however just they may be, to which the war has 
given rise. But for our own sake as well as 
ibr theirs I woidd not visit upon them a policy 
of conliscation which has been discarded in the 
policy and practical conduct of every civilized 
nation on the face of the globe. 

I believe it important for us as well as for 
them that we should' cultivate friendly relations 
with them, that we should seek the i)romotion 
of their interests as part and jfarcel of our own. 
We have been their enemies in war, in peace 
let us show ourselves their friends. Now, that 
slavery has been destroyed — that prolific source 
of all our alienations, all our hatreds, and all our 
disasters — there is nothing longer to make us 
foes. They have the same interests, the same 
hopes, the same aspirations that we have. 
They are one with us ; we must share their suf- 
feiiKS and they will share our advancing pros- 
perity. They have been punished as no com- 
munity wasever punished before for the treason 
they have committed. I trust, sir, the day will 
come ei'e long when all traces of this great 
conflict will be efiaced, except those which 
mark the blessings that follow in its train. 

I hope and believe we shall soon see the day 
when the people of the southern States will 
show us, by evidences that we cannot mistake, 
that they have returned, in all sincerity and 
good faith, to their aUcgiauce to the Union ; 
that they intend to join henceforth with us in 
l^romoting its prosperity, in defending the ban- 
ner of its glory, and in fighting the battles ol 
democratic freedom, not only here, but where 
ever the issue may be forced upon our accept- 
ance. I rejoice w^ilh heartfelt satisfaction that 
we lijp-e in these seats of power — in the execu- 
tive d^i)artmcnt and in these halls of Congress — 
men who will coiiperate for the attainment of 
these great and beneficent ends. I trust they 
will act with wisdom ; I know they will act from 
no other motives than those of patriotism and 
love of their fellow-men. 



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